A Study in Tickle Me Pink
by Riddelly
Summary: When six-year-old John Watson is forced to transfer kindergarten classes after an incident with a violent ball game, he's sure that he'll be lost among his strange new classmates, including the enigmatic Sherlock Holmes. However, when kids begin to go home after mysteriously vomiting pink, John and his new unlikely friend are thrust into a mystery that renders school far from dull.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N** _Alright, so my excuse for this starts somewhere almost two years ago with tumblr user butthorn's post 15387980125. I saw it, thought it was adorable, decided to turn it into a short fic, and promptly forgot about it until a few weeks ago, when I finally managed to churn out the 10,000 words that would create "A Study in Tickle Me Pink." It's pretty shallow and silly, but I've had fun with it, so here's part one of five (others will be posted on Sundays for the next four weeks). Excuse any Americanisms, but I found myself far too lazy to actually look up whether a number of little words and behaviors were consistent across continents. _

**Rated K** _because it's a kindergarten AU, come on_

**Disclaimer** _I don't own Sherlock or any associated characters, events, etc; additionally, cover art isn't mine, and story idea is that of tumblr user butthorn._

* * *

**one**.five

John Watson's leg ached. Not with the simple misfortune of having tripped down the stairs or slipped on an icy sidewalk, but with a deeper throbbing, one that pierced past mere physical discomfort—he was upset, because the injury that glared up at him now, all too visible from where his leg lay extended on the grey plastic of his itchy cot, was far from accidental.

"I don't want to play with them anymore," the six-year-old declared, holding his trembling lip in place as the school nurse, a kind woman by the name of Ella, calmly ran a cool washcloth over the injured area. His torn skin was tender, and he winced as she cleaned away bits of dirt and crumbles from the blacktop, but he refused to let out any more tears; he didn't want to earn any sort of reputation as a crybaby. "He pushed me on _purpose, _I know he did."

"That's very possible," Ella agreed, her smooth chocolate-colored hand pressing against the whitened skin around the damaged area, sponging away the smallest bits of blood with the tip of the cloth. "And that's also one of the reasons that we're going to be asking you to switch classes, John."

"...What?" _Switch classes? _Yes, it was barely the beginning of the school year, but the idea was still alarming—he had barely gotten used to the one he has now; the last thing he wanted was to switch teachers and rooms! "I don't... I don't have to."

"Yes, you do." Her voice was still very steady, but he trusted her less now, and shot a glare in her direction as she folded the cloth and turned to deposit it in a wastebasket. She then moved in a rustle of pink fabric and light clinking from the necklaces of polished stones that she donned, settling behind her desk and folding her hands neatly on the surface as her dark eyes regarded him under a shock of short, neat black hair. "Bullying isn't tolerated here, and we'll make sure to see to it that those boys receive appropriate consequences, but we can't make them behave. We've talked with your parents, John, and we all agree—it's probably better for everyone that you move to room 221b."

"221b?" he echoed. It wasn't one that he'd heard of before, but was far enough from his own current room number, 105c, that he was sure it couldn't be anywhere he'd gone near before. Nervousness began to writhe inside of him, but he swallowed, refusing to let it show. They were doing this for his own good, or at least trying to. The best thing to do was stay quiet and listen to what Ella had to say, even as he started to feel sick due to an anxiety that couldn't be more attached from the motivations behind his leg injury.

"That's right. The teacher, Mrs. Hudson, is a very nice woman, and I think you'll find it to be perfectly suited to an intelligent young boy like you. It's a very smart class, and it might be more your speed—you do very well on your spelling tests, John; you've impressed all of us."

But this wasn't about spelling tests. He would do well on them either way, and it wasn't as if he needed competition in kindergarten. No; she was switching him out because of the bullying, and there was nothing she could say that would convince him not to be embarrassed about the situation. Still, there really was no way out of it—he certainly didn't want to participate in a dodgeball game that violent again, and he had no doubt that further injury would be inevitable with the classmates he had now.

"...Okay, I guess," he finally mumbled, his shoulders sagging. The clock ticked steadily away above Ella's desk. "I don't want to go quite yet, though, if that's okay."

"Of course; if you need a few more minutes to rest your leg, feel free to stay here. Besides, I believe Mrs. Hudson and the students are in the middle of a lesson right now, anyways. Afternoon recess is in half an hour—how about I send you out then?"

"Sure." He sighed and leaned against the wall; it was cold through his light T-shirt, but he didn't have the energy to pick up the zip-up jacket that lay discarded on the floor, which Ella had insisted he take off for the purpose of checking his arms for scrapes. They were perfectly clear, as it turned out—his only injury was the shallow gash on his leg, which really felt a lot better now that it had been wiped off. There wasn't much blood, he supposed, and the deeper injury was certainly to his pride. Transferred! To another class! Just because he was pushed around a bit on the playground! At least he hadn't made any real friends so far through the school year, so he wouldn't be leaving much behind, save brags on the lips of the stupid bullies.

The clock continued, now accompanied by the shuffle of papers from Ella's desk. He didn't know what time Mrs. Hudson's class had their afternoon recess, but hopefully it wouldn't be too far away—the tangy smell of disinfectant, heavy in the air of the nurse's office, was beginning to give him a headache, and he couldn't help but wonder how Ella put up with it all day long. He certainly wouldn't want to grow up to be a doctor, he decided with a frown.

After a while, apparently perceiving his gnawing boredom, Ella sighed and set down her papers, regarding him calmly with those steady dark eyes. "I really do think this will be good for you, John," she says again, her voice thankfully breaking through the monotonous tick of the clock. "All sorts of fun things will happen to you in Mrs. Hudson's room. In fact... here." Her desk drawer slid open with a creak, and then she was pulling out a notebook—a wide-ruled composition book with a black marbled cover, which she then carried over to him, her heels clicking on the floor.

He reached out curiously, and she slipped the notebook into his small hands; it was a third his size, and he had to adjust his arms quite a bit to wrap them securely around it. It was a good shape and weight, he decided. Still, he had no idea what she'd want him to use it for.

"This is a journal," Ella explained, crouching next to him. "You've been learning how to write in your old class, right?"

He nodded slightly, his fingers running along the edges of the thin paper bound into the book.

"Well, I want you to use this notebook to write about what happens to you. Record all the adventures that you have in Mrs. Hudson's class—I'm sure she'll be more than glad to help you with spelling or anything that you need—and at the end of the year, you can look back at all the fun that it turned out to be. Okay?"

It was a nice idea, he supposed, but there was one vital point that she was making. So he looked up and met her eyes, his small shoulders moving in a shrug as he explained the difficulty in a single quick sentence.

"Nothing happens to me."

* * *

"It's _really _important," Greg Lestrade was saying three halls away, sandy brows low over his large, dark eyes as he attempted to convey the importance of the situation to the rest of Mrs. Hudson's class, who were positioned around him in the usual cluster of afternoon circle time. "Three people have had to go home now, and it has to stop!"

Sally Donovan, sitting beside him with her curly, dark hair in twin pigtails and her arms folded over her overalls, enforced her friend's words with a firm nod, scowling around at the rest.

The hand of a skinny boy with glasses went up, quivering with curiosity.

"Yes, Peter?" Mrs. Hudson allowed. She was sitting in a chair rather than on the floor with the rest of them, for a reason that she only ever stated with the plain word _'joints;' _Greg thought it was rather unfair that the rest of them were forced onto the scratchy carpet, but she was a nice enough teacher otherwise that he didn't object to the rule.

"How d'you know that there's a bad boy who's making them go home?" the skinny boy pointed out. "Maybe they're just getting sick because of... because of germs!"

Greg shook his head quickly. "No, it's a _pattern." _Mrs. Hudson had only just been teaching them about patterns during maths hour; maybe he would earn the respect of any doubters with his clearly intelligent observation. "Three people got sick, and _all _of them had pink in their throw-up! It has to be because of someone else."

Mrs. Hudson pressed her lips together, clearly displeased with the rather repulsive tone that Greg's words were taking; besides, it was time to move on. "Alright, Greg," she said, settling her hands onto her lap, "thank you for sharing. Now, why don't you let Sally have a turn?"

"It's okay," Sally exclaimed quickly. "This _is _really important."

"Yeah," Greg agreed, "everyone, _please _be careful! Sally'n I are gonna find the person who's doing this, we're already looking around a lot—"

"Wrong," a bored voice mumbled.

Greg frowned and peered across the circle in an attempt to identify the speaker. Mrs. Hudson forced on a smile and turned to the boy who had interrupted. "Is there something you'd like to say, Sherlock?" she asked in as cheery a manner as she could muster.

Sherlock Holmes was a thin, pale boy with sharp features and a spill of dark brunette curls over his light green-grey eyes, usually wearing dark clothes and more often than not sitting alone in a corner of the room with second or third-year math books that Mrs. Hudson had special permission to get him. The rumor was that he was smart, _super _smart, so smart that he might even go to a different, special school next year. Greg Lestrade, however, was unimpressed by these awed murmurs—to him, Sherlock was little more than a pigheaded nuisance, and he was grudging to accept the idea that he might actually prove useful for their investigation. Sally was of a similar mindset, but Mrs. Hudson, apparently, was far too keen to hear what Sherlock had to offer.

Luckily, he only shook his head at her prompt, his features slipping back into apathy.

Greg took a deep breath. "Sally and me—"

"Sally and I," Mrs. Hudson corrected gently.

"Sally and I are trying really hard to figure this out. We're maybe the smartest in this class—"

"Wrong," Sherlock sighed again, glancing up at the ceiling and shaking a stray curl out of his eyes.

"Ignore him!" Sally spoke up, a slight flush creeping up under the smooth curve of her dark caramel cheeks. Her pigtails practically seemed to bounce in indignation. "Don't listen to him, he's just a showoff!"

"Alright, boys and girls," Mrs. Hudson interceded, deciding that things were getting just a bit too heated for a healthy classroom atmosphere. "Greg, thank you for telling us about this. I'm sure we'll all be very careful not to eat anything pink in case it's poisonous, is that right?"

"Yes, and don't go anywhere alone, because—"

"Then is everyone ready to go outside? It's time for recess!"

The circle was immediately stirred up in excitement as the rest of the kids got to their feet, some running ahead to reach the playground first and get to the slide or monkey bars before a line formed. Greg folded his arms as he rose, taking his time—he had more important things to concern himself with.

"He should _stop," _Sally whined as the two of them started for the door, her eyes fixated on Sherlock's thin shoulders as he moved a bit ahead of them, somehow at the front of the small crowd despite the fact that he was displaying no apparent exertion. "It's not fair for him to interrupt."

"I asked him to stop, lots of times," Greg muttered back. "He just _won't." _

Though he feigned deafness towards them, Sherlock Holmes heard every word exchanged behind his back, and, as Mrs. Hudson's kids poured into the hallway, he couldn't help but smirk. His classmates were just so _dull _sometimes.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N** _In response to one anonymous review I received: as mentioned in the previous author's note, there will be some errors in this, as I've based it upon the American schooling system. Seeing as this is a silly little scribble of a fanfiction that I wrote for myself and my amusement, I'm under no obligation whatsoever to do any sort of research for it, and nothing is forcing you to read it if such simple mistakes bother you. To the rest of you: thank you very much for the wonderful feedback!_

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**two**.five

"Alright, John," Ella declared as the clock above her desk flickered to towards its two. "Mrs. Hudson's class should be heading out just about now, if you're ready to join them."

"Oh—okay, yeah." John, who had been thoughtfully tracing the blue lines of the notebook pages with his thumbnail, pulled himself to his feet, taking care not to put too much weight on the damaged one. "I'll... I'll go."

"Remember, you'll want to find a cubby buddy. Preferably while you're still out there, if it works for you. There should be at least a couple who aren't sharing one, since a few have left the class, and I believe there are a few poor children in that room who have needed to go home due to that strain of sickness."

"The one that's making everyone throw up pink, you mean?"

"Yes, of course. They've all come to me, you know, my being the nurse, and I must say, it's quite nasty, whatever they've caught. Not like any natural illness I've ever seen, but it's not like it could be anything else... well, I won't bore you. Just be glad that you're healthy, John—other than the leg, but it should be just fine in a couple of days."

"I hope so," he mumbled.

"Of course. Now, go on—you know the way out, right?"

"Yeah." Taking a long breath, he clutched the notebook to his chest and limped carefully out of the room, the soles of his shoes clacking against the linoleum floor. The door outside was just around the corner, but he paused in the hallway before exiting, as soon as he was out of view of Ella's windows. He took a long breath, leaning against the wall, the edges of the notebook hard and sharp against his arms. He wasn't about to deny that he was afraid—afraid of what the others would think of his bad leg, that was. Injuries were a rare enough occurrence at their school that he was sure to draw attention, and attention was the last thing he wanted—changing classes already made him enough of a pariah.

_Pariah. _That was a good word—he'd learned it from his older sister, Harriet; she was in sixth year, far ahead of him, and it was largely thanks to her that he'd gotten such successively excellent scores on his spelling tests. She was a wonderful help in his work, at least when she hadn't had too much Coca-Cola—the caffeine always sizzled her wits, but, he reflected mournfully, it was really becoming more and more common.

He didn't have time to dwell on Harriet's downwards spiral, though. He had to focus on his own problems right now, and, that in mind, he took a deep breath and pushed past his last reserves of anxiety, turning and pushing open the door as best as he could with his small stature and bad leg. It took several lungfuls of air, but he at last managed to muster the strength enough to shove it wide and allow himself out into the sunlight.

It was warm outside for a late autumn day, gold and orange leaves swirling through the gentle breeze and dangling from the thin twigs clinging to the end of branches that arched above the playground. It was full of colorful equipment, across which was currently dotted a wide array of children—most of them were laughing and playing, though some seemed a bit quieter, their eyes kept lower; all of them, regardless, were very clearly immersed in their own friend groups, and John knew immediately that it was going to be even more of a challenge than he expected to find his own way in.

At least, such were his thoughts until he heard a curious voice beside him.

"John?"

He frowned a bit but didn't turn at first; it was a common name, of course, and he didn't expect anyone here would know him. He barely made it a step closer to the playground, however, when it sounded again—this time, from its eager urgency, unmistakably aimed towards him.

"Hey! John!"

Making sure not to put too much giveaway weight on his injured leg, he turned, frowning in confusion, and was greeted by the sight of a chubby, dark-haired boy with glasses, waving excitedly at him from his position on a bench by the door. Though he had no friends nearby him, the boy seemed quite at ease, roused only from his tranquil relaxation by John's appearance.

John narrowed his eyes. He knew this boy—or at least he thought he did; something about the shape of his face was familiar—then it hit him all at once, and he quickly composed his features into a more amiable expression, smiling slightly as he skipped over.

"Mike?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes! From preschool!"

Sure enough, it was Mike Stamford from preschool—John Watson's best friend, in fact, and not one that he'd known to be attending the same place for kindergarten. Apparently they'd been separated by their classes, but now, if Mike was with Mrs. Hudson, and John was transferring—well, maybe he'd have a cubby buddy after all.

"I didn't know you went here," Mike was continuing by the time John reached this conclusion.

"I didn't, either—I mean, I didn't know that _you _did. I, um... I'm coming to Mrs. Hudson's class, actually. Ella told me to look for a cubby buddy. Would you—?"

"A cubby buddy?" Mike's jubilant expression coasted into a disappointed frown. "I'm sorry, I already have one. I don't know if there's anyone that..." Then, all at once, his eyes lit up once again from behind their glasses, and he nearly bounced in place as a clear realization struck him. "I know! I know who you can share with!"

"You do?" John repeated, caught between disappointment and hopefulness.

"Of course! Here, come on." He clambered to his feet and started across the playground, feet crunching in the sand and short hair mussed in the wind. With no way to put the action off, John started after him at a steadier gait, holding his leg close to him and glancing around himself every few steps to make sure that no one else was watching. They were headed, he figured after a moment, for the swing set—odd, as it appeared to be vacated. Soon, however, his eyes fell upon a slip of a girl—so tiny that she was barely there at all—leaning against one of the heavy green bars that held the structure in place. Her light hair fell over wide brown eyes, which were currently directed towards the ground—the ground, John then observed, upon which was perched another child.

This was a boy, pale and skinny under a dark, long-cut coat that he held hugged tight around his frame. His light green eyes were narrowed down at his free hand, in which was clutched, to John's utter astonishment, a long, spiky twig, presumably harvested from the fading treetops. And, at the end of the stick, there was a ragged lump of fur that didn't take much to identify as a dead squirrel, its eyes clouded and half-shut, limbs stiff as the boy prodded methodically down its soft white belly.

"Um!" Mike declared. The girl jumped, but the boy remained crouched, his heavy brows only sinking slightly lower in acknowledgement of his new visitors. Several more seconds elapsed, during which John's throat began to grow dry with nervousness, before the boy nodded, apparently to himself, and sat back.

"Molly."

The girl jerked again, then mumbled a quick "Yeah?", pushing her hair back from her flushed face.

"I'm thirsty, would you get me a cup of water from inside?"

"Of course, yes!" Molly scampered off, her movements akin to those of a yearling fawn, and left the three boys alone, the dark-coated one glowering up at John and Mike with his arms now folded over his tight coat, the stick now discarded.

"Hello, Mike. And... hm..." His icy gaze shifted to John, and swiped quickly up and down his short frame. "Mrs. Hawkins or Mrs. Porter?"

John felt something shift in his stomach, and had to swallow past his dry throat before speaking. "...Sorry?"

"I said, Mrs. Hawkins or Mrs. Porter?"

"I—"

"You limped over here; I saw. Mike brought you, and he never talks to me, so he must have had a reason. I've never seen you before. I'm the only one in the class who doesn't share a cubby already. So you're coming to our class, meaning that you had to leave another one for some reason. Remember the injured leg. Well, there are only two other rooms, my brother said, that have had people get hurt today. Mrs. Hawkins's and Mrs. Porter's. So which one are you?"

"...Mrs. Porter's," John confessed, his mind racing in an attempt to keep up with this boy's amazing knowledge. "You're right... I mean, you're right about everything, but... how did you know all that stuff?"

He scoffed. "Elementary."

"Ele—but we're... not there yet. We're just in kindergarten—"

"Not _that _kind of elementary. I mean it was easy. Simple. You do understand language like that, right?"

So not only was this strange new boy smart, but he knew a lot of words, so he could _sound _even smarter than he was. John wasn't at all sure whether he liked him or not, but he tried to stay quiet, not to make any judgment until he got to know him better. Maybe he'd turn out to be a great cubby buddy; John had no way of knowing. Smart people were usually neat, too, right? So at least it wouldn't be too messy. Still, to say that he had no reserves was a complete lie. He was expecting, well, a _normal _boy or girl, like Mike—or like Molly, who was now hurrying back across the playground, almost tripping over herself in her haste to deliver a plastic cup of water.

"Water? Thank you, Molly." The boy accepted it from her trembling hands and took a long sip, before his eyes shifted back to the squirrel corpse. "Well, I should probably get back to work."

"Work?" John repeated. "But... what is it? I mean... that's a dead squirrel!"

"I know it's a dead squirrel, Mr. Watson—"

"—Wait." John's stomach flipped yet again, and he was beginning to feel nauseated from the successive turnovers. "...How do you know my name?"

"You're from Mrs. Porter's room. My brother told me, of course—the Watson boy, hurt in a dodgeball tournament and sent to the nurse's office. I'm surprised you're out of there this quick, actually—he made it sound bad."

Before John could even begin to find the words to express his indignant disbelief, a loud, buzzing chime resonated across the playground—the bell, signaling that afternoon recess was over. He frowned. The fifteen minutes had gone by remarkably fast, and he decided that this boy must have been a part of it—trying to keep up with his swift, low-spoken words was beyond exhausting, and he felt internally out of breath, despite the fact that he hadn't exerted himself beyond walking across the playground.

The dark-haired boy sprang to his feet immediately, dropping the stick and kicking the squirrel a bit closer to the side of the swing set. Molly yelped and scampered away as the little body moved towards her, and Sherlock rolled his eyes, downing the last of his water in a neat sip before casting the cup aside and tucking his hands into his jacket pockets. "I'll see you at the cubby, then," he murmured to John.

"Wait—_wait!" _John insisted as he began to walk off. He paused and glanced over his shoulder, pale eyes lazy. "I don't know what cubby we're sharing—I can't remember Mrs. Hudson's room number, either, and I don't even know your _name." _

A slight smile turned up the corner of the boy's thin lips, and he lifted his chin high to murmur a response so quick, still steadily walking away, that John barely managed to catch all the words.

"The name's Sherlock Holmes, and the room is 221b. Afternoon!"


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N** _I will say one more time: this is a silly, senseless little story written for amusement only. It is not meant to accurately reflect the British schooling system. I'm posting it here with the thoughts that there may be someone who will find it entertaining. Any reviews asking me to "do research" will be ignored and deleted, since I have no obligation or desire to do so. It's called crack; if you can't understand that, perhaps you should stay away from fanfiction. (If it makes you feel any better, go ahead and pretend that this is an American AU.)_

_That said, here's the third of five chapters. If there are any of you who do enjoy these snippets regardless of the regional innacuracy that I have already twice said myself to be aware of, I would be overjoyed to receive a review saying so, though of course there's no need to if you'd rather not!_

* * *

**three**.five

"It's a _mess." _

John was staring at a cubby—a relatively normal cubby, or at least it had looked like as much from the outside; the closer inspection that he now engaged in, however, revealed it to seem to be nothing short of a tornado disaster site. Crumpled papers coasted over a dirty bag, topped with scratched pencils and a few uncapped markers, the inked trails of which ran over the myriad other bits of rubbish. The only thing that seemed absent from a classic image of elementary devastation was food wrappers; from the look of it, Sherlock didn't so much as bring a lunch to school, let alone eat in his cubby.

"A... bit of one, yes," Sherlock acknowledged in a mutter from where he stood beside John, just out of the way to allow the shorter boy to properly observe the space before him. "Thought you won't be spending much time with it, it's only a place to stuff your pack—"

"Sherlock!"

John and Sherlock turned together, the former's brow furrowed into an expression of troubled confusion and the latter's pale eyes alight with eagerness at the familiar tone. Greg Lestrade faced them, his arms folded over his chest and his dark hair askew in his eyes, while Sally Donovan stood at his side as always, her own chin held high and curls bouncing with the exertion of having dashed across the room.

"We just heard Mrs. Hudson on the phone," Greg reported. "There's been another one."

"Another child? Sent home?"

"Sounded like it."

At these words, such a strange, absolute tension clasped Sherlock that John found himself silenced by the mere heavy presence of the other's churning, sifting mind. Greg and Sally grew wordless as well, and their shoulders stilled as they turned to Sherlock, brought into a similar awe as John at the sight before them. Sherlock's lips were loose, his forehead clear—in fact, every muscle in his face seemed perfectly slack, save only the set of his eyes. They flickered rapidly about: to John, Greg, Sally, then the ceiling, and across the room towards where Mrs. Hudson stood with a phone cradled to her ear, a concerned expression settled over her lined features.

Sherlock's lips twitched.

_"Lunch period." _

"Lunch period?" Greg echoed, but there was no time, as it would seem, for repetition—Sherlock was already tearing across the room, slipping out the door before John could so much as discern whether he was smiling. Greg let out a small groan of frustration and Sally's frown tightened. John, on the other hand, had no intention of being so hopeless—instead, he began to hurry across the room, his bad leg dragging slightly behind him.

"Where are you going?" Greg called after him.

"With Sherlock," John shot back without turning. The answer was obvious; Greg was only being lazy.

"There's no point," Sally added, her tone pulled down into something almost bored. "He never does anything but run. You won't be able to catch up with him, anyways."

John shot a last glance into the classroom. Mrs. Hudson was still on the phone, the cord now wound around her, while the rest of the class seemed occupied in one way or another, the only real attention coming from Greg and Sally, who regarded him with identical expressions of weary futility. His stomach was stirring with something close to excitement. This was huge, more daring than anything he would have imagined himself to attempt just yesterday, before his injury—leaving the classroom without a teacher's permission could result in a full day time-out or worse. He may even have to leave Mrs. Hudson's class for good.

It was a heavy risk.

But the reward—whatever reward that might be, of adventure or daring or Sherlock's company—was well worth it.

"I can try," he breathed, and bolted out of the room.

The hallway greeted him in a blast of cold air, reflected into increased iciness by the stark linoleum that lined the floor for almost as far as he could see in either direction. The ambience of the classroom faded very quickly into a humming silence, and John froze for a moment, hit by the realization that he wasn't quite sure which direction Sherlock had gone in. Everything seemed empty now—he glanced rapidly from side to side, but couldn't discern a single occupant of the long stretch other than himself.

"You're not lost, are you?"

A shiver passed through him as he whipped around to regard the voice that had so suddenly brushed against his ears. Standing there, dark against the white walls, was a girl—a few years older than him, certainly; perhaps a fourth or fifth year, with a sea of brunette curls hugging her thin shoulders and an expression as neutral as if she'd been there all along. Perhaps she had been—John hadn't heard any footsteps, though he was also quite sure the hallway had been vacated when he first entered it. Clutched between the girl's slim, polish-nailed fingers was a thin mobile phone, and it was towards this that her mild eyes drifted now, though it was clear that her words had still been directed at John.

"I'm... I'm not lost," John mumbled. "I just... I was looking for my friend."

"Well, it doesn't look like anyone's here." Her words, while clearly intended to be kind, struck him as rather patronizing, and a scowl drifted to his thin lips, joined by a quick fold of his arms.

"No, of course not. He's fast."

"He shouldn't be out here alone," she murmured. "Neither should you, for that matter. Why don't you come along with me? I'll be happy to help you find your room, and maybe your friend will be there."

He considered telling her that he would need no hope whatsoever finding his room—in fact, that it was right behind them, his head almost brushing up against the yellow plastic plaque with the number _221b _embossed neatly across it—but decided against it, for no apparent reason. He knew not to trust strangers, but this girl wasn't old enough to be a danger, and she might even lead him in a direction that would help him find Sherlock.

"Okay," he allowed.

"Lovely! Let's keep going in the direction you were, then. We're sure to get there eventually." She held out a hand, but he shook his head, keeping his arms up against his chest.

"Shouldn't we find a hall monitor?"

"Oh, it's alright. Fifth years don't need anyone to come with them," she reassured him with what she probably thought to be a friendly smile. "And you're not supposed to be out here in the first place, so it can hardly hurt you to come along with me for just a few minutes. A bunch of the classes are at lunch right now, anyways, so there will be plenty of teachers out and about, if you're really worried."

"...I'm not really worried."

"Good, that's good." For the first time, her eyes flickered up from the screen of her phone, and her smile flashed briefly wide again in a cold sort of faux reassurance. "Let's go."

Her heels clicked loudly against the flooring, and John had to half-run to keep up with her longer strides. After the initial words persuading him to accompany her, she was unnervingly silent, and he forced himself to take several deep breaths, reminding himself that she was only a fourth year and couldn't possibly do anything to hurt him. The way she moved, he began to notice after a while, was oddly intentional, and his stomach began to burn at the thought that she actually had motives other than trying to get him back to his classroom. These suspicions, much as he tried to force them down and away, were coldly confirmed when she pushed open a very unfamiliar door and indicated that he go inside.

"This... isn't my room," he forced out in a mumble.

"Oh, I know that, John. But I still think you ought to take a look inside."

His insides were frothing now, twisting and bending inside his chest and stomach as heat rushed to his face. He had to be brave, though. Sherlock was brave, and he could be like that, too. He'd just do what the older girl said, and then he'd get back to Mrs. Hudson's room soon enough. He had to.

"...Okay." He took a slow step inside, glancing around. The lights were off and the shades pulled, so that the warm darkness was broken only by a few pale slats of sunlight creeping along the undersides of the windows. After the fluorescent-illuminated hallway, the density of the shadows was unnerving, and it took him several seconds to adjust enough to make out the slender figure standing straight and tall against the other wide, his back to John and a slim umbrella clutched between his pale fingers.

"Welcome, John. Take a seat."

"How do you know my name?" he blurted out, disregarding the other boy's instructions. He was beginning to grow truly fearful with the pure _strangeness _of his situation, and his fingers curled into shaky fists. He refused to cater to this bizarre fifth year's commands.

"Why, because I know your cubby buddy, of course."

"Sherlock? What... what does Sherlock...?"

"Have to do with me? Everything, John. Everything."

He wished the boy would stop seeming to read his mind. Without thinking, he glanced over his shoulder, half-hoping that the girl was there—though she had led him there and perhaps he should have trusted her even less than the boy, he couldn't help but seek out the only other person who he felt even somewhat comfortable with. However, she wasn't there—presumably, she had gone back into the hallway, perhaps even to seek out someone else to drag back here. John was left alone.

"Tell me more, then."

"Very well." The boy turned to face him for the first time, and John saw that his dark hair was cut neatly above a high, pale forehead, thin features inlaid with narrow eyes the glinting pale shade of ice. He was smiling, but it didn't seem genuine, and, as he continued to speak, his umbrella began to twirl, its silver tip tracing swift patterns through the shady air. "I have some concerns about Sherlock. About... what he gets up to in Mrs. Hudson's room."

"Why do you care about him?"

"We have a... connection." The thin lips quirked slightly, rendering the chilly smile more lopsided. "I worry about him, and, being a fifth year... I don't get the time to make sure he's doing alright. So I am going to ask you to do that for me, John. If you just do that much... let me know every once in a while if Sherlock is doing well... I'll be very grateful. There might even be something in it for you. If you have any interests, I'd be happy to provide—candy? Books? Crayons?"

"I don't want anything." John forced himself to swallow past the dryness amassing in his throat. All he really wanted was to get back to Mrs. Hudson's room, but even that wasn't worth _spying _on Sherlock for this odd boy.

"You're very loyal."

"I'm just not _mean. _I wouldn't do that. It's not... it's not something a friend would do."

"...Very well. If you ever do change your mind, I know Anthea will be more than happy to escort you back. Until then... good luck with Sherlock's company, John. I know he can be difficult to bear on occasion."

Without another word, the boy strode past him, and John hastened to the side, watching with wide eyes as the towering, dark-suited figure swept out into the hallway, leaving him alone once more. His breath rang through his ears, pulsing in and out for several seconds before footsteps sounded again, accompanied by the girl making her way back in, phone still in hand.

"I'm supposed to take you back. Room 221b, is it?"

"So you knew all along."

"Hm?"

"Oh, it's nothing." John took a deep breath and crossed his arms again, his gaze shifting down to the ground. "I just... okay. Fine. Let's go back."

"Maybe your friend will be there!" the girl—Anthea, if what the boy had said her name was—suggested with an overlarge serving of fake enthusiasm. "He can't have taken too long."

"Maybe," John acknowledged vaguely, though he doubted more than a little that Sherlock would have already returned from his mysterious expedition; for everything leading up to it, the conversation with the unfamiliar boy really had been quite brief in and of itself. As they stepped into the hallway, he glanced quickly to either side, wondering if perhaps his confronter was still there, watching or waiting. But only emptiness greeted him.


	4. Chapter 4

**four**.five

Upon returning to 221b—a careful process that involved many hastened, hushed gestures from Anthea and two incidents of nearly being spotted by Mrs. Hudson as he attempted to enter—John headed immediately over to the table that he shared with Sherlock, to find an unfamiliar pink lunch box perched upon it.

Sherlock himself had his knees folded on one of the small plastic chairs set up around the table, his elbows braced on the surface and his fingers running thoughtfully over his lips as he regarded the vivid object set in front of him. His eyes barely flickered up in acknowledgement as John slowly took a seat beside him, the shorter boy's tongue clasped over a report of what he'd just gone through, of the mysterious man he'd met.

"What's that?" John opted to ask instead, nodding towards the lunch box.

"Exactly what it looks like. Someone had their food in it. The nametag says that her name is Jennifer—and Jennifer is also the name of the last girl to go home. This is the victim's lunch box."

"The victim," John repeated slowly, testing out the word. It was a big word, he decided, a very big one—something about the way Sherlock pronounced it sounded bracingly official, and John suddenly felt a slow stir of incompetence, as though his attempts to keep up with Sherlock's thoughts were just as unreliable as the limp that left him trailing behind whenever the dark-coated boy set off at a sprint.

"Yes. And I found it in the toilets."

John's eyebrows lowered, and his lips affixed themselves into a half-pout. "The toilets?" he repeated uncertainly. From the way Sherlock delivered the sentence, it was a piece of decisive evidence, and yet John could attribute nothing more than sheer abnormality to the phrase. "What do the... why the toilets?"

"I don't know. But I'm going to find out."

"How?"

This time, Sherlock did look up towards John, and his eyes were wild with eager grey-green fire, practically sparking as words poured forth from his lips. "At lunch time. They're being taken from lunch hour, somehow. So we have to go there, now, and see what's happening. The best way to find something out is to observe it for ourselves."

_Observe. _Another big word. "But it's not lunch anymore," John pointed out.

Sherlock's dark eyebrows dipped. "Not for _us, _but for the other years! And children of all ages have gone home, not just kindergarteners. No matter whose lunch hour it is, they're in trouble, and we need to help them."

"How?"

"Is that all you ever ask?" Sherlock lifted a hand before John could begin to voice a response, shaking his head. "No, don't answer that. There's no time. Here—come on!"

"But—wait!"

"There's no time to wait!"

The next thing John knew, there was a hand on his wrist, and then he was being jerked to his feet again—"Hey!" he called out in protest, but was silenced by a rough shoulder to his chest. His eyes instinctively flew about the colorful room, seeking out the familiar form of Mrs. Hudson, but his desperate stare was greeted only by the distracted features of other kindergarteners.

"She's gone out for a moment," Sherlock muttered in an undertone. "That's why we have to go now."

"To the cafeteria?"

"Where else?"

As though that cleared up everything, Sherlock straightened his shirt with his free hand and marched on out the door, leaving John to cling onto him and slip against the floor.

"Sherlock—_Sherlock," _he hissed, feet sliding across the polished linoleum, his usual balancing abilities suppressed by the taller boy's rush as well as the striking pain that still lanced his leg. "We can't just... do this!"

"Of course we can!"

John, disbelieving, opened his mouth to protest again, but was cut off as Sherlock tugged him around and through a nearby doorway. Within instants, the previous cool calmness of the hallway was replaced by a brightness and bustle that brought him to the realization that they had entered the cafeteria. It was currently filled with children perhaps two years older than them, somewhere between Sherlock and Anthea's ages, and John instinctively shied away from the bigger kids, instead clinging to the wall as Sherlock's narrow eyes flickered up and down the ranks.

"We didn't even get a _hall monitor," _John was gasping out, finally jerking his hand free of Sherlock's so that he could wring his together, throbbing with anxiety. "It's not safe to run around like—"

"Shh!" Sherlock hissed briefly. John scowled, slightly miffed.

"I—"

"Need to be quiet. We're not supposed to be here."

"Of _course _we're not supposed to be here, that's the point! We need to get back to Mrs. Hudson's classroom!"

"Nonsense." Sherlock's brows loosened slightly, and he took a moment to adjust his coat, thin fingers running along the edge of the dark collar. "You were in the nurse's office during lunch, right? You didn't get the chance to eat."

"I... I guess not."

"Fine, then. You can eat now."

"What? But it's not my lunch hour!"

"No matter. I know one of the chefs. Angelo. He won't have a problem getting you whatever you need."

"Well..." Despite himself, John could feel the slow snarl of his stomach's wanting for food, and he sighed softly. It was as good an offer as any. If he had to be here when he wasn't supposed to, he might as well take advantage of it. "Do you know what they have today?"

"Never pay much attention. I'm not one for eating all that much."

John scowled for an instant, trying to pin sense to these strange words, then gave up with an internal shrug. It was only another oddity to add on to the pile of bizarreness that seemed to make up Sherlock Holmes. "...Okay..."

"Go on up, then, ask Angelo. He'll know. Cooking is all he ever does."

John's stomach released one last faint groan and fell silent; the thought of having to talk to a bigger boy easily quelled the gnaw of hunger. He shook his head instead, leaning back against the wall once more and trying to catch his breath more thoroughly as he scanned the long room for any sign of a teacher. Thankfully, there were none, or at least none that he could make out—instead, the only occupants were the second- or third-years crowding the rows of tables. "What are we looking for, anyways?" he began, but barely managed to eject the last word before Sherlock's hand was on his shoulder, dragging him close so that the taller boy could hiss into his ear.

"The door at the far end. See it?"

Sure enough, upon squinting, John could just make out the form of a skinny, chestnut-haired boy slipping out of the room. His heart roared against his ribs at the implications of the action, and he felt something inside of him tighten with suppressed excitement.

"Come on!" Sherlock hissed, shoving them forth together. "We have to catch him!"

"Maybe—" John began, half-formed thoughts of it being a random coincidence flooding his mind. He wasn't stupid, though, and he knew at this point that anything Sherlock suggested was probably well-worth taking into account. Besides, his injury at the dodgeball game had cut his recess time short; he could use a little more exercise.

That in mind, there was nothing to stop him from springing forwards as fast as he could, careening out into the hallway and following the snap of Sherlock's dark jacket as he dashed after the receding form of the reddish-haired boy, who was accompanied by an irritatingly speedy hall monitor.

"Wait!" Sherlock bellowed, his young voice surprisingly resonant against the cold walls. For a moment, the boy seemed only to speed up, and John felt his head heating at the thought of a real criminal chase, but an instant later he slowed and turned around, frowning.

"..._Damn," _Sherlock got out, skidding to a halt and bringing his fingers to his lips.

John gaped—both at the unbelievably bad word uttered by the boy beside him, and at the face of the older girl who frowned at both of them now. _Girl—_girl with coppery locks cut just like any boy's, but whose softer-formed face was still unmistakable. A girl, and it was impossible for her to be their culprit, as the crimes—and John didn't even need Sherlock to point this out to him—took place in the boys' toilets.

"Shouldn't you be in class?" the girl snapped, clearly irritated by the disruption by the two, both of whom were a good six inches shorter than her, John closer to nine.

"I... I guess," John started to agree, but Sherlock only scowled, narrowing his eyes at the girl, whose complexion grew tighter and tighter with frustration. _"Sherlock!" _John finally forced out, tugging on the back of the other's coat. "We have to go! Teachers might come!"

"...Fine." With a final seething thrust of his glare, Sherlock whipped around, his coat cutting the air, and stalked in the other direction, straight past the open door of the cafeteria.

"Don't we want to go back and watch for more?"

"It's no use now. That took at least a minute or two; it would be all too easy for a boy to have slipped off by now. The best we can do is wait and see."

John let loose a slow sigh, Sherlock's disappointment ringing through his own veins despite his lesser dedication to the mystery. Just the thought of how amazing it could have been if they'd really caught the bad guy! The pessimism of the situation seeped through him more and more heavily, until he was practically plodding along, and the pain of his injured leg—before eclipsed in the burning excitement of their chase—now returned in a series of nagging stabs.

"My leg's hurt," he reminded Sherlock as the door of Mrs. Hudson's classroom, slowly growing familiar, came into view. "I shouldn't be running around."

"You're fine," Sherlock replied crisply, not so much as bothering to glance down at the limb in question. "It's not all that bad, or they would have sent you home."

"But—it _hurts!"_

"You'll get used to it."

It was an unbelievably rude response, and John might have snapped something in return if not for the fact that they were now slipping into Mrs. Hudson's room, an action that required as silent of an execution as possible. John's lungs tensed as he looked over the room, and he soon located their teacher in a corner, assisting a tearful classmate with what appeared to be a broken doll. He released the breath as soon as the door was a reasonable number of paces away, and instead directed his attention instinctively towards the cubby that he shared with Sherlock—the cubby that, as he observed now with his mouth falling open, was being guarded by the hard-eyed duo of Greg Lestrade and Sally Donovan.

"What are you _doing?" _Sherlock spat, stepping up beside John. Already impatient due to his earlier failure, the dark-haired boy was now practically trembling with tension as he glared ferociously towards Greg and Sally.

"Sweets bust." Greg turned away from the cubby that he'd been perusing, his chin high and his arms folded over his thin chest. "We have reason to believe that you're hiding chocolate."

"Chocolate?" John repeated, glancing back and forth between the two disbelievingly. "No way... he doesn't even _eat! _Why would he have chocolate?"

Ignoring John's interjection, Greg continued, while Sally sniffed disdainfully for added impact. "You're not allowed to have chocolate, and—"

"You think I'm hiding clues!" Sherlock interrupted, his lip curling. "You aren't looking for chocolate... is that what you told Mrs. Hudson, then? Or did you say anything at all? Surely the latter... even she wouldn't be foolish to believe a lie like that!"

John paused for an instant, wondering if Sherlock would categorize him as foolish, seeing as he had been quite thoroughly convinced that Greg and Sally were being truthful about their motives before Sherlock had offered a much more sensible alternative. He considered actually voicing the question, but had no time to—before he could speak a word, Sherlock was turning around once more, moving back towards the door, and, this time, the slant of his step was far from inviting; John knew that he did not want to be followed.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N** _And so arrives the end of this silly little ficlet. If there's any interest in a sequel ("The Blind Piggy Bank"), please let me know in a quick review! For those of you who have reviewed, favorited, and alerted, thank you very much for your support. _

* * *

**five**.five

"You're clever, aren't you?"

The voice latched onto Sherlock like a hook, turning his head practically of its own accord to fixate upon the speaker. It was a boy, standing just outside of the door that he was passing by—a watery-eyed, pale boy, the edge of whose protuberant teeth glinted above his lower lip. Light, almost white-blonde hair curled around his temples, and he was dressed in worn, machine-washed clothes that shone scratchy around his shoulders and knees. Sherlock felt one of his own eyebrows lifting in unwilling inquisition, and he stilled his feet for the time being, evaluating the older boy who stood across from him.

"A clever boy," the stranger repeated. "That's what you are."

"You could say so."

"But you couldn't figure out the obvious."

_Figure out, _Sherlock thought as the gears of his mind began to shift and turn, was an awfully clumsy phrase. There was nothing to figure out. Only pieces to be put together, as they were now: the boys' toilet, the girl with short hair, the hall monitor—ever-present, the _hall monitor._

"You're the hall monitor." He said it now, because there was nothing to be gained from keeping it a secret. John was still distracted by Sally and Greg, and Mrs. Hudson was out of earshot; the conversation uttered now was shared only between him and the hall monitor—who, he now noted, had a sticky nametag slapped on the front of his vest, reading _Jeff _in the blocky script of a second-year, though this boy had to be a good bit older. "Jeff."

"Not just a hall monitor." Jeff's shoulders shifted, and a smile curled his lips, exposing crooked teeth. "This is a bad place to talk, though. Want to head somewhere else? Boys' toilets, say?"

"What if I don't? What if I'd rather call Mrs. Hudson and Greg over here now, and see if you're still smiling when they send you home?"

"You could. But there's more to it than that. Send me home now, and you'll never know why those other kids had to go. It'll be an unsolved mystery. And you can't _stand _those, can you, Sherlock Holmes?"

Sherlock was practically itching; it was true, of course. A case left puzzling tormented him like almost nothing else, and Jeff, as it would seem, knew that quite well—odd, as Sherlock was quite sure that he'd never seen any part of the other boy but the back of his head in his life, and his memory wasn't one to fail him.

"No, I can't," he replied honestly.

"Right, then. Let's take a little trip."

Sherlock allowed himself one last, brief glance over his shoulder; his eyes lit upon the other three, and, for some reason, lingered at the shoulders of John Watson. The blonde transfer boy was strange... strange, beyond all other ways, in that he had chosen to come along with Sherlock, to join him in the ventures that this case had let him upon when it would have been just as easy to refuse entirely.

He wondered, for around a third of a second, whether John would come after him upon realizing that he was gone, then dismissed the thought as ridiculous, shoved his hands into his pockets, and started into the hallway with the barest of huffs.

He could hear Jeff's sneering smile more than hear it, but didn't allow the crude gesture to imbue him with any sense of uncertainty. There was only one direction that he had to go in now, and his feet found it for him, placing themselves one after another on the hard, cold linoleum, guiding him down the memorized path towards the boys' toilets, the place where everything had been happening. Despite himself, there was a chilly little eagerness raging under his calm, still skin—he was about to learn it all: what had happened to the sick children, what Jeff's cause for such cruelty was, what strange substance had poisoned the victims' vomit such a bitter shade of pink.

The latter question was the first answer as he slipped in through the dark-wooded single door, into the desolate tiled space lit by nothing but a single fluorescent light that sputtered uncertainly. Perched on the counter, as if waiting for him, were two perfect boxes of crayons, their sides glossy with the shine of being newly purchased. However, Sherlock's eyes were sharper than most, and it didn't take much to see the slightest imperfection of shape that meant they'd already been opened, at least once.

Jeff shut the door tightly, followed by the click of a lock that Sherlock felt shudder through every vertebra on his spine. In the space of seconds, the hall monitor had crossed over to the sinks and lifted the two boxes, one in each hand, both rattling with the weight of their contents.

"You made them eat crayons," Sherlock observed slowly.

"Didn't _make _'em. I gave 'em a choice, if they wanted."

"Between the boxes."

"Don't be dull. There's another choice, if they can't do it."

"Very well. Show me."

Jeff's sneer fell back into place, and one pale-knuckled hand lifted into the air just behind his head, the gesture clear with indication. Sherlock felt himself sniff with disdain. Crude, he supposed, but effective.

"Petty. The crayons, then. I choose a box."

He seemed rather reluctant to bring down his fist. "'Course."

"And ingest the contents, presumably?"

"No fancy words. You eat them—"

"Enough to make me sick, either way."

"—But only if they're pink."

Something shifted in Sherlock's mind, a measure of pure understanding beginning to take root, but he couldn't stop asking questions yet, not when he was finally onto something. The light flickered above him as his words plowed on, as if mirroring his own intensity. "So I make a choice. You know which is which. I don't. They're externally identical... I only find out once I open the box, and then, if they are pink, I'll be forced to eat them. It's pathetic, really," he decided, and Jeff's face, before swimming through a series of expressions that grew ever more gloating, quite suddenly soured and fell. "There's no risk to it. It's chance. Assuming that I won't get out safely anyways if I choose the wrong one, what's the point? Why not go for the fist?"

"Because—" And then Jeff's uneven grin was back—"whichever box you don't take, I do."

Sherlock's blood crystallized. All at once, a rough attempt at bullying was transformed, chemically producing something new, something fascinating: there was more at play here, so much more, and the most satisfying of aches began to gnaw at his head as he considered it. Jeff knew. And his confidence conveyed that he also knew what the other would choose—somewhere in the back of his mind, thought he was aware of what _Sherlock _would choose. It was complex, it was fascinating, it was _beautiful... _it was a puzzle in golden trappings, and he contemplated it now in the most reverent of ways, his mind moving in leaps and bounds to evaluate the thousands of chances that sprung from only the two, considering, measuring.

"And why are you doing this?" His lips moved to form the words without his permission, going about their usual pattern of seeking out information despite the fact that his mind was already simmering with thought. "What's in it for you? The simple pleasure of bullying?"

"More than that. There's another boy. The candy machine on the older kids' floor? He knows how to break into it."

"And you get a bit for each child you send home," Sherlock was noting, but that was only his voice, for behind his skull something much more powerful was boiling forth: thought of _another boy. _The realization that Jeff, who was clearly not unintelligent but still far from a genius, had someone else behind him, someone who had presumably devised the brilliant scheme of the crayon boxes, along with every other element of what truly did appear to be the perfect crime... there was another, and, whoever he was, Sherlock knew in that moment that he had to find him. That this boy, this mysterious figure who now assumed a dark, clouded visage in his mind's eye, was sure to be unlike anyone else he had ever met.

"Don't get dreamy," Jeff snapped, apparently aware of the excitement that was consuming every fiber of Sherlock's being. "You're never gonna get to meet him, because you're never gonna get out of here. You'll pick the box. It'll be the wrong one. You'll be sent home, and by the time you get back, you're gonna be as ignorant of this all as you ever were. Now, enough chit-chat. Choose the box."

_Choose the box._

_Choose the box. _

It was remarkable, Sherlock recognized faintly, just how soon his mind managed to narrow into the single burning decision. _Choose the box. _Both offered a risk. One offered a reward. Fifty-fifty... it had to be... but if he went home, if he got sick, he would never find the man behind this. The case would remain unsolved. More would be hurt, for he had no doubt that Jeff had all number of threats in store to prevent his name from being given out... unless, of course, the rest were too dense to even take note of the tag, rendering him anonymous, which was all too possible... _choose the box. _

His fingers were drifting near one. Brushing along the lid. His heart was racing, pulse swift against the thin skin of his wrist as he extended the hand, hooked his thumb nail under the thin flap of paper board, began to pull it back with cold anticipation of the color pink that he could only pray the packaging not to reveal—

The door banged open.

Sherlock whirled around immediately, the box slipping off of the table and to the floor, his jaws silently parted in an unspoken exclamation of what was either relief or anger. The sight that confronted him, to his amazement, was none other than the small form of John Watson, standing behind the far-flung door—and, at his heels, Sally and Greg, while Mrs. Hudson stood behind them with her fingers thrown across her lips in surprise and a key, clearly that of the bathroom door, dangling from her other hand.

"There!" John cried. "I _told _you!"

And then a rush pressed in all at once—John moved to Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson to Jeff, while Sally and Greg exchanged a silent and solemn-faced high five; in the midst of the miniature blast of chaos, the crayon boxes were knocked to the ground, kicked here and there until even Sherlock could not tell which was the one he'd been near opening—he would never know whether his instinctive move had been right.

* * *

"He got suspended, then, I guess."

"He did."

Sherlock was sprawled across one of the chairs in the room, watching the clock as John spoke to him. Each tick seemed to mock and entice him both at once.

"Serves him right."

"Maybe so. My brother will be glad to hear about it, in any case. He's... all too concerned with threats towards me." He felt his mouth twist into a scowl at the thought of just how worked up Mycroft would be at the knowledge of his near-poisoning. Perhaps there was some way to keep him from knowing, though it wasn't much of a subject worth his contemplation.

John, standing behind him, froze for an instant, his tension palpable in the air despite the disguise of the ambient atmosphere of a once more peaceful room. "...Brother? He doesn't... does he look like you? I mean, with the light skin and the black hair?"

"A bit, perhaps." Sherlock had no reason to ask why. It was all too easy to guess—chances were that John had encountered his cumbersome sibling at one point; Mycroft never could seem to keep his nose out of Sherlock's business for any substantial period of time.

John launched into what was presumably an explanation, his grammatically imperfect words tripping about one another, but Sherlock was no longer listening. Instead, his eyes burned with the vision of nothing but the clock, tracing the second hand, aware of its miniscule ticks as it moved closer.

An unknown name... an invisible face. Somewhere out there, another boy was waiting. Still dangerous. Still intriguing.

Whatever had begun with the mystery of the pink crayons was far, far from over.


	6. SEQUEL

**SEQUEL ALERT!**

The next installment in this series can be found in my stories, under the name "The Blind Piggy Bank." Enjoy!


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